


The Storm in the Store Window

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Buckets, Fluff and Smut, Go Right Ahead and Judge Me, John Is a Good Boyfriend, Karkat is a good boyfriend, M/M, NSFW, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Seriously I Can't Believe I'm Posting Porn, Shameless Smut, Tentabulges, That Pretty Much Sums Up the Whole Plot Right There, happy valentine's day, yeah - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-16
Updated: 2014-02-16
Packaged: 2018-01-12 18:04:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1194483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Valentine's Day.  In some circles that would mean, "Let's have sex!"  With John it means, "Let me torment you creatively because I am kind of a jerk."<br/>Why does Karkat put up with this?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Storm in the Store Window

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS: This is porn. X-rated, messy, moderately kinky porn. Possibly badly written porn, too.  
> Yup.  
> I wrote the porn, and then I posted the porn. I don't particularly have any grandiose explanations for why there is porn on my account now, except that I am human and, uhh...  
> Nope, don't really have anywhere to go with that one. Mostly, I thought it was funny. And I'm kind of contractually obligated to contribute to the horns kink... and I couldn't manage to do that in any PG way, so.  
> Anyway, probably will never write porn on here again, so enjoy it while you can, if that's your thing?

For Valentine’s Day Karkat got a bucket, filled with chocolates.  
  
He took one look at the object, snorted, and crossed his arms. “I’m not eating that,” he declared, just so that the record could state it and maybe later, when it was being reviewed, he could be forgiven for breaking down and ultimately eating _bucket chocolate_. Come on, though; there was a lot of chocolate in that thing, and Karkat was not about to waste resources. It was individually wrapped, so there you have it: reasonably hygienic.  
  
Regardless of Karkat immediately taking aim at John’s squishy human underbelly of feelings and stupid gestures that didn’t translate through cultural boundaries, John just grinned at him. “Bet you will.”  
  
“Bet I throw your ass in the snow and let you freeze to death,” Karkat grumbled. John was in the entryway, and Karkat felt confident of his ability to accomplish this before John cheated with the windy thing. Well. Maybe if John wasn’t grinning so hugely. The winter had turned his nose a little red, and his dark hair was curling around his wooly mukluk hat. He was wearing the scarf Karkat gave him.  
  
Oh goddammit, he’d planned well. He was invincible.  
  
“You’re grouchy,” John observed, setting down the bucket and squirming his hat off. “Was it econ class again?”  
  
No, it was Terezi and Dave making out all through econ. Fucking Valentine’s Day. “Just—come here,” Karkat grumbled, and then ignored his own request to just grab John by the arm and tow him close. John giggled brightly, the sound all sparkly and white, like earth’s stupid frozen rain flakes, and Karkat stole his first kiss since the morning. Ugh. Five hours of no John.  
  
Ugh. Being concerned over five hours of no John. Karkat’s thinkpan was officially rotted with all this quadrant hopping.  
  
“Mmm,” John hummed happily into the kiss, bumping his chilly nose into Karkat’s and curling frosty fingers along the back of Karkat’s neck. The troll squawked when they slipped beneath his turtleneck. He shivered—it was reflexive, dammit—and would have bitten John mostly on purpose had this not been followed by John’s tongue taking very, very pleasant advantage of his gasp.  
  
So instead Karkat’s eyes rolled up in the back of his head and his grip shifted, gathering his boyfriend as close to him as possible. Yes, John was all his now. His human’s mouth was really warm, which helped make up for the chill. Karkat nibbled at it greedily. He’d have been perfectly happy to waste the rest of this stupid holiday kissing in front of the door, but John prodded him in the ribs and was suddenly handing him the bucket of candy. He sped out of the room. Karkat stared at the bucket askance.  
  
He then followed John. “The fuck do I do with this?” He demanded, jangling the bucket and ignoring the chocolaty-sweet smell that would have, if Earth didn’t flash freeze itself every winter, attracted every insect in a mile radius. He was kind of miffed that the kiss was over too, if he was being honest. Which he was not.  
  
Karkat planted himself in John’s path and growled at him. “You’re not funny, and this is disgusting. You deal with it; I don’t want it.”  
  
“Just put it in the bedroom or something,” John said, slipping past Karkat with an unfair smile. Karkat’s face was already burning enough from adding bucket + bedroom (a stupid name for respiteblock. John was partial to most of their sexual activities happening in a respiteblock/bedroom, for whatever reason), and smiles that goofy (and sexy) did not help. He attempted to trip John because he was mean-spirited and petty. John floated over his outstretched foot and did not appear to notice.  
  
This too, Karkat blamed on Valentine’s Day. He was off his game.

\----

The game continued to be lost. Karkat was having trouble figuring where to hide the bucket so he wouldn’t have to think about it. What? No, he didn’t want to think about chocolate porn! He wasn’t _depraved!_  
  
Unfortunately, the bucket stank like the supermarket candy section. So the room would soon be soaked in the aroma of shame, regardless of attempts to the contrary. Optimism insisted that Karkat should at least see about the highest shelf in the closet and maybe placing some foul-smelling socks in strategic areas. John walked in while Karkat was just sort of blindly tossing unwashed laundry at the upper shelving, not really willing to look because ewww, what was he even doing? The things. The things he did for this human.  
  
This human whose arms swooped around his waist, snug and toasty, and then smacked a kiss under Karkat’s ear. Karkat purred shamelessly for about half a second and then spun around to give John a look that was meant to intimidate him into eternal silence. Instead, he got kissed. Dammit. The worst part was that Karkat genuinely liked this plan better.  
  
“Hm, hi there,” John greeted, with his teeth poking out unselfconsciously. And also, he had hat hair.  
  
Karkat had: a ridiculously attractive human. He purred again and leaned forward to kiss that ridiculously attractive human’s soft lips. They were all his. He was remarkably happy, just for right now.  
  
John shuffled forward when Karkat kissed him until they thumped against a wall. Karkat grinned into the best kiss ever, all sloppy and silly and unhurried, basking like John’s affection was becoming the rays of the New Earth sun. He clung to John’s shoulders and jealously guarded all that attention, sliding his tongue beneath John’s and flicking, just the way guaranteed to make his human gasp.  
  
Success. Yep, felt good to get John shoving at him. John slotted a leg between Karkat’s slowly—giving him time to push John off if he had other plans, or had left the stove on again (fuck curtains, though, seriously). But Karkat had already been warned that his human would probably have something dumb planned for Valentine’s Day—he’d kept his evening free. And an opportunity to pail with the idiot trumped virtually any alternative.  
  
But. Karkat didn’t want to seem desperate.  
  
So instead of grinding down on the heat of John’s skin, he grazed his teeth gently over John’s lips, like he would bite and tug if he’d been kissing another troll. It would have gotten them good and hot, and John seemed to like it—fucking Christ, John bit him back. Actually hard, for once. Karkat was reconsidering his opinion on Valentine’s Day. Groaning, he gave up and let himself work his bulge along John’s leg a little. Ummh, fuck, that felt good.  
  
“Bucket?” John murmured in his ear, and Karkat started shivering for totally different reasons than the cold. Goddamn. Annoying as it was when John brought buckets up at weird fucking moments, when he got it right, it made Karkat take a lesson in swooning. He kind of had a thing for it. Was it a, _just want to hear my concuspient quadrant chatting about buckets while I’m dripping for it_ or a _just want to hear John use the term correctly because he’s obnoxious_ thing? Stop the presses—Karkat was never going to find out. John was the most obnoxious asshole ever, but Karkat wasn’t planning on ever letting him get so much as a toe out of Karkat’s quadrants because fuck if Karkat wasn’t stupid with pity _and_ hate over the bastard.  
  
Karkat would let John get away with too much, including pailing him without a bucket, apparently, because Karkat hadn’t cleared theirs from last night, and with John all but glued to him like this, Karkat wasn’t stopping for anything less than nuclear war. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d debauched each other like that—Karkat blushed from remembering—so he pulled his head back to grunt. “No. Use your human thinkpan and make do.”  
  
“We should get one,” John objected gently, while thoroughly abusing Karkat’s bulge with his leg. Karkat clung to his common sense and John’s warmth, riding it out and refusing to make too many of the noises bubbling up in his chest. John was saying something about how they’d get the carpet dirty. Fuck. Was he really going to call this off? Karkat was going to kill him.  
  
Then, like, pail his corpse.  
  
Then make the Egbert-Crocker girl bring him back. And pail him some more, just to be a bastard, ohhh god, if John wasn’t going to do anything about it, he really should stop pushing right up against Karkat’s bulge like that…  
  
Karkat wanted to remind John that they didn’t have a fucking treasure horde of buckets gleaming with hygiene and eagerly awaiting use (unfortunately), but then there was cold steel bumping at his shins and biology took over. Karkat groaned aloud, gritting his teeth and widening his legs so the bucket could get between them. Delirious with affection and fierce lust for his human (and his miraculous powers of bucket location), Karkat pinned John’s thigh to press right into the perfect sweet spot on his bulge. He struggled to unsheathe, between his pants and the fact that John’s leg was squishing him back down, but he accomplished it well enough when John started kissing him again.  
  
According the Standard Karkat Manual of Pailing Proceedings, this was when John crouched down with him, put his hand down Karkat’s pants and paid some attention to the bulge that was desperately slinking along Karkat’s hips and stomach in search of its partner. Or, alternately, applied his fingers to Karkat’s nook if he wanted to get on with it. Karkat was horny and good with either. As much as he would like for his bulge to be attended, he really wouldn’t mind getting to the main event, with John’s stiff human bulge stuffed into his nook and doing that stupid bobbing thing that had no right to feel as good as it did. Damn human mating habits. If Karkat wasn’t so far gone over John, he’d have protested that it was his right to enjoy sex without getting vertigo—but frankly, by the time John would even consider _holding hands_ with Karkat, Karkat had been embarrassingly, tearfully unrequited for years would have swallowed his sickles before turning down anything involving John’s bulge and his nook actually touching.  
  
So yeah, fine, Karkat was desperate. He whined, trying to encourage John to go ahead—fucking green light, buddy—and maybe just skip straight to actually pailing Karkat so hard Karkat forgot how to breathe and made good use of this mysterious bucket…  
  
Hang on.  
  
John’s fingers were still stubbornly outside of Karkat’s pants—flattened over the curve of his ass, actually, which Karkat approved of only because John was petting him a little too—so Karkat mostly retained control of his mental faculties. Question: how did they have a bucket? He looked down. He observed the bucket. He pinched his boyfriend.  
  
“Ow!” John protested, lips smacking away from Karkat’s own. He frowned, narrow-eyed. “That hurt.”  
  
“This is the chocolate bucket.”  
  
“I wind-swooshed the chocolate out,” John informed Karkat, presumably just in case his ganderbulbs had shorted out just after ascertaining the bucket’s identity. Karkat furrowed his eyebrows.  
  
“You… carried a visible, intended sex object all the way home?” His voice got an octave higher. “And first you filled it with _nutrients?!_ ”  
  
John, being John, considered this while tapping a finger to his chin—one less finger that was not currently down Karkat’s pants. Karkat snarled at it. “I’m not sure chocolate counts as a nutrient,” John said, probably just to be an ass. Karkat seethed a little, and broke off in a hiss of breath as John let his weight list forward just enough to apply an extra burst of pressure to his sensitive bulge. It writhed, pinned and neglected and really, really wanting John to touch it without all this clothing in the way. “But yeah?” John shrugged. Grinned, with Karkat’s bulge slobbering inside his pants. _Bastard._ “That’s about the size of it. Like your present?”  
  
He leaned forward again, evilly. Karkat bit his lip to stop from gratifying him with another gasp. Fuck this. He stuffed his own hand down his pants and sighed. Immediately, his bulge twined all through his fingers, where it tingled and got them dripping. Ugh, and _of course_ his bulge was soaked. John’s leg was definitely wet over there. How was that for desperate?  
  
And then John—henceforth known as The Bastard—tugged Karkat’s hand free again and pinned both his wrists to the wall.  
  
He did this while kissing Karkat, which was why he was still alive.  
  
Karkat growled a distinct note of threat when John pulled back— _get your goddamned hand in the vicinity of my bulge before I bite it off_ —and John grinned and licked his ear. Karkat flinched, because whoa, he’d gotten more than a little sensitive from wanting John so hard his skin hurt, and John’s lips brushed torturously over him as he whispered, “No, not today. No touching.”  
  
“Fuck you,” Karkat snapped, enraged to discover that now his bulge had been abandoned by John’s leg too. At this point it was too swollen to retreat into its sheath, left to prod uselessly at the front of his pants and generally sulk in the empty plane of Karkat’s hips. Karkat panted, eager for some way to get off, as quickly as possible, so he could prioritize and get on with tonight’s unfortunate domestic murder.  
  
Instead he was being kissed again, like John wanted to make his soul melt. John kissed sweeter than anything in the world—even when he was being a complete ass. One more shocking reminder that the human had somehow waxed requited for whatever quadrant fuckup they were in, and whenever they were together, Karkat had to brace for kisses that stole any common sense he had.  
  
Right now all that tender sentiment made Karkat’s chest tighten into painful knot and jolts of electricity went shooting straight between his legs because apparently you could get more turned on than he already was, if you were infatuated like this. Karkat arched for the vastly inadequate friction of his jeans. It was better than nothing. John’s fingers stroked lightly over the squirming in his groin— _yes, please,_ Karkat would totally forgive him if he’d just—and then Karkat’s zipper was being pulled down. Goodbye, friction. Hello, cold and unforgiving winter air.  
  
And still, no hands. Good god.  
  
Karkat yelped, and very nearly punched John in the eye. He did yank his wrists free, because like fuck he was letting John continue on this power trip if he was going to sit there and abuse Karkat’s poor bulge. “Don’t,” John warned him as Karkat reached down to comfort himself. Karkat glowered at him defiantly, with his hand paused just over its destination. John’s smile was warm and not at all cruel, in spite of the game he was playing. He slipping hands to cup Karkat’s flushed cheeks. “Please?”  
  
Karkat had speeches for this. About cultural sensitivity and the fact that xenobiology did not mean John got to use him for sick and twisted science experiments like in the Old Earth movies—up to and including refusing to pay attention to his bulge—and also about the fact that John was pretty much a raging dickwaffle. Instead his eyes tried to close and he had to defeat the urge to purr by sheer force of will. _Damn it._ “Why?” Karkat whined, shoving his head roughly against John’s palms. His bulge was out, there was a bucket resting solidly between his legs, and Karkat’s skin was on fire from all this kissing. He widened his eyes to ask, “Is this one of your not a homosexual things? Because, I swear—”  
  
“Jeez, no! It’s Valentine’s Day, remember?” John rolled his eyes. “Time for romantic gestures and kinky sex? Which is what we’re going to do, if you’ll stop flipping your shit.”  
  
“Why can’t you just pail me like normal,” Karkat grumbled, having no idea what John meant by ‘kinky’, only that so far it wasn’t going exceptionally well for him. “What is so bad about pailing like two normal, sane tro—people?”  
  
“Nice save,” John observed dryly. Karkat bared his fangs, because he’d regressed to four sweeps old. John assured him, “There’s nothing wrong with normal sex; it’s just nice to play around a little bit sometimes. Right?” And then suddenly his fingers were in the best possible place.  
  
Not Karkat’s bulge or his nook—no, forget those.  
  
His _horns._ Shiiit. Karkat whimpered, buoyed up to the moon on a cloud of hormones and endorphins, going slack against John’s body. John knew exactly where to touch to trigger all the sensitive nerves hidden beneath the chitinous shell; he played Karkat like his piano. In a minute the shock of the new stimulus would wear off and his nook and bulge would be priority one again. But for right now, Karkat was perfectly happy, pinned between the wall, John, and a bucket, horns caught in warm, blunt fingers and sending shivers of happiness rolling down Karkat’s spine.  
  
“Dooon’t stooooppp,” Karkat moaned while he was still coherent enough for words. Maybe it was because his horns were so small—it might mean more nerves packed into a smaller surface area—but they just about knocked him out every time. As long as John kept up that gentle pressure for the next few minutes, Karkat would be blissed out, and all he’d be good for would be showing John how bitable his neck was and how nicely he’d behave if John would condescend to pail him. Too bad Karkat trusted the little fucker so much, or an attempt at triggering his submission reflex would have been just the boost Karkat needed to get arrested for homicide this evening.  
  
“Yeah, feels good, doesn’t it?” John encouraged, squeezing just enough to make Karkat’s eyes clench shut and his throat vibrate in a deep purr. Bulge mostly forgotten, Karkat reached clumsily out and managed to get his hands on John’s waist, stroking affectionately. God, this human. Karkat leaned forward and began to lick, slow and patient, paying attention to John’s tongue when it joined him, and then massaging at his lips when John gasped for breath. The unrelenting pressure in his horns made Karkat dizzy enough that he’d have fallen over if he wasn’t so nicely pinned.  
  
“You planned this?” Karkat asked, slurring because he couldn’t seem to get his tongue back into his mouth long enough for words. He kissed John breathless when his human tried to answer and John had to push him back, laughing, to get the words out. Karkat slumped into the wall obediently, and was rewarded with the hand going straight back to his horn. “John,” he sighed, wanting to kiss but needing the human to offer it.  
  
“Today,” John smirked down at him with wicked mischief, “We’re going to pail just using your horns.” Karkat’s eyes widened a little at the news—a jolt of alarm cut through his delirium because really, that was going kind of far and his bulge was starting to hurt—but it was soon washed away by all the floating, mmm, John touching him stuff.  
  
“Really?” Karkat struggled to grind out any sort of negativity. “You think that I’ll just start… magically overcoming my retention reflexes? You know, the nice, polite society ones that prevent us from dropping material all over the place unprovoked?”  
  
“Hmmm,” John hummed straight into his ear, squeezing hard and giving Karkat the extra jolt of sensation needed to shut him up for several minutes of nonstop panting. “Yeah, I think so. I looked it up online, and the submission reflex is supposed to be directly wired to your—“ Words drifted in and out of Karkat’s awareness. He couldn’t focus on anything but the sugar dripping down his spine and the nagging ache between his legs where his bulge had started thrashing in an all-out tantrum. Oww. “Kismesis,” he heard John say. Karkat groaned, ears flattening to his skull.  
  
“This is… a hate thing?” Oh god, if John was actually trying to torture him, Karkat was going to curl up and die on the spot. He was so not ready for a hatedate. Right now he wanted to take John to his human sleeping module, tuck him in, and tickle him until he looked like they’d just had sex. And then, just. Just tell him something stupid, so John would smile.  
  
“Does it _feel_ like a hate thing?” John asked, sounding amused as he began to suck his mouth against Karkat’s neck. Warm, wet, stinging with pleasure-sweet aches. Karkat purred helplessly, enjoying the way John’s tongue pushed against his throat to taste the vibrations.  
  
“No,” he managed to reply when John stopped mauling his neck. “Feels… feels good.” Karkat moaned softly, writhing against the wall. “Your hands feel so nice…” Human fingers were soft and scratchy at once, with callouses rasping alongside thinner flesh. John’s hands were perfection. And you know where _else_ they’d be perfection?  
  
Karkat had officially reached the point where if John wasn’t touching him someplace concupiscent in the next few seconds, he was going to curl up and die.  
  
“Yours feel pretty nice too,” John observed with another smoldering laugh that Karkat felt in his toes. His fingers were tracing up his human’s chest and seeking familiar patterns of muscle and bone beneath his shirt. He’d have gotten closer if he could, but this wasn’t bad. And John finally kissed Karkat again.  
  
Karkat sighed in pleasure, angling his head to lock their lips tighter, take John’s tongue deeper. Below, his bulge ached harshly into his belly, demanding release. His nook felt numb and alien. Karkat wasn’t used to the feeling. Before John, he’d known better than to touch himself because, obviously, no one was going to want the mutant (this, of course, failed to prevent him from masochistically hate-flirting with nearly everyone he knew, because Karkat was kind of an idiot); so he’d never had to worry about satisfaction. After John, well, they were pretty good about taking care of each other’s needs. Frequently.  
  
“Please,” Karkat gasped—and his eyes filled up with tears.  
  
Fuck.  
  
He groaned, blinking, and only succeeding in making them blur his vision. Why did his body always have to resort to crying? Really goddamn annoying. Especially right now, when Karkat had not a snowball’s chance in hell of controlling himself. The more John touched his horns, the more Karkat’s body told him to lay everything out bare before his human and let John take control. Surrender felt good—but only when Karkat wasn’t about to start sobbing all over them both. Then life felt just kind of sucky in general.  
  
John just shooshed him, like the quadrant-hopping freak he was. Probably would have papped Karkat, although that would mean easing up on the ridiculously unfair attention being paid to his horns. The complete, pan-melted sexual deviant. “Shh, it’s okay, Karkat. Wait—are you okay? Is this actually hurting you?” Karkat shook his head automatically, head too fuzzy to actually process the question. Fuck, okay, _stop crying._ John kissed the tears from him, which Karkat was immediately grateful for. He nuzzled into John’s jaw, asking silently for a kiss. He got one, and moaned with it.  
  
“I’m fine, it’s okay,” he breathed to John, because he could feel the concern in his human now, like a string tied around him that stopped all his movements a half inch too short. No sooner did Karkat reassure him than he saw John let out a deep, long breath, and the fingers on his horns squeezed tighter. Karkat dropped his face into John’s shoulder, repeating the sentiment, “It’s all gooood.”  
  
“Pailing-good?” John asked him, but Karkat didn’t know. John let him rest for a moment before Karkat was being gently rearranged back against the wall. He whined briefly. He wanted to be as close to John as possible right now. All over, skin to skin, feeling him. Inside and out. Karkat’s nook clenched at the thought, and abruptly it was aching too, woken up and trying to make his life a living hell. Karkat panted with dismay, claws snagging into John’s clothing. John didn’t care. Kissed him again, close and warm enough to make Karkat’s nook squeeze on nothing with renewed enthusiasm.  
  
“Dude, you look so many kinds of hot right now,” John observed, voice so soft it could be a cloud. Karkat tried to breathe it in, drinking it in with all his might. “God. If you could see yourself, Karkat…”  
  
Way too kill the mood, fuckass. If Karkat could see himself, he’d probably be trying to claw both of their eyes out. Self-loathing was his god and he worshipped at the fucking altar daily—and he didn’t want John bringing him up in the middle of _pailing_ , seriously, were there no limits to his horrible ideas? It made John laugh, though, when he tried to glare. “If it’s any consolation to your poor bulge, you’re making this really hard on me, what with you trying to break your sexy. And those noises, _fuck._ Just, Karkat, wow. You sound like you’re going to drag me off to your cave.”  
  
Karkat grimaced up at his human, throat thick with purrs. It was coming out as a smile too, wasn’t it? Ugh. He wanted to be kissing. “Hmm. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”  
  
“Yeah, damn, I guess it would be awesome?” John laughed shakily, fingers circling the tender base of Karkat’s horns slowly, torturously. Goooood. “Then when we’re in bed,” John whispered, like it was a secret. “Drag me off whatever nightmarish crypt you have in store.” Karkat, mellowed out and tingling, laughed.  
  
“When we’re _pailing._ We do… other things in your bed.”  
  
Karkat, for the record, did not cuddle. At all.  
  
Right.  
  
“Yeah, yeah,” John kissed him briefly enough that Karkat’s smile stayed in place, even as he licked the taste of John from his lips. He was moaning, and he didn’t realize it until John was shivering against him, shaking his head. “Jeez! You’re killing my nerves here. Growling like that really just… makes things harder.”  
  
Karkat’s breath fell out of him in a shuddery sigh at the thought of his human’s bulge. He took it as an invitation, and felt his way blindly to the front of John’s pants, rubbing the hard swell there. Karkat’s eyes teared up again, in sympathy—or maybe just in intense eagerness. His nook was acting like it was going through its death throes down there, and Karkat had to struggle for any coordination. Worth it when John’s breath caught and he shuddered over Karkat, hips pressing inward.  
  
“You can go ahead and,” Karkat sighed as John began to moan, hips grinding, fingers almost painfully tight on Karkat’s horns. “Stick it in. I won’t come, if it’s not ‘kinky’ enough for you, so you can just. I mean. You prefer me as your bucket, right?” Karkat’s voice rose hopefully. He—okay. He did prefer John as his bucket, when he put his bulge in (even though it was kind of sick, and only ever when John didn’t mind). And it was all good on Karkat’s end as long as John was pressed against and inside him, regardless of where the human released his material. He wanted John to want him every bit as badly.  
  
“Oh _shit,_ ” John’s voice was strangled. “Karkat. Karkat, stop.” Immediately, Karkat did, hands falling back to the wall, head bent deferentially, exposing his neck and horns. His horns were being reassuringly pinched all over, but his neck went untouched until Karkat was trembling with thwarted anticipation. John was catching his breath, shaking, eyes glazed. They focused slowly, saw Karkat biting his lip and trying not to make a complete ass of himself. John’s voice went so gentle it almost hurt to hear. “Oh.”  
  
Yeah, ‘oh’. He knew better than to give direct orders while Karkat was on a hornhigh, the little shit. He was going to get socked for this later. When, you know, Karkat was capable of fighting back.  
  
Karkat tried to glare, and couldn’t quite manage it. He panted instead, teeth gritted, and felt John shift forward. “Okay,” the human whispered, understanding—fucking finally. He leaned in and licked gently, soothingly at Karkat’s offering. Karkat chirped weakly back--just fucking take it, please take what I'm offering--and outright screamed when John snapped his teeth down. Oh god. Sooooo _good._ Worth it; really, really worth it. Orders sucked, and wires got crossed all the time.  
  
It went straight to his nook. Throbbing all over the place. John bit him like he’d really break the skin this time and it still felt so safe to be caught in his teeth. Karkat’s hips squirmed over the bucket, seeking the stimulation they instinctively believed was there, for him to be getting off on it like this. His genetic chambers were swollen full by now, and his bulge thick and tight enough he could barely move it, and basically, Karkat was so ready to pail it wasn’t even funny. Saying he could keep from coming while John fucked him was probably a huge overstatement. At this point, the barest touch could set him off—because horn-touching may have felt amazing, but it certainly wasn’t sex. Karkat needed something to stimulate his bulge and nook if he was going to come. Fuck the internet—it _lied._  
  
“You smell like you’re ready to mate,” he babbled to John, filter disintegrated with desperation. “You smelled like pheromones when you walked in and now you smell like—“ he inhaled, whimpering, “—like every good thing in the world.” Like sunlight and chocolate and _John_ and slow, drowning-deep sex. “Please, please, please,” his nook was going to turn itself inside out. “Pail me. I’m literally begging you. I fucking need _something._ ”  
  
John responded with a slow kiss, dirty enough to make Karkat snarl a little and tighten all over, bulge dribbling little sounds from the bottom of the bucket that did nothing to help him calm down. Karkat couldn’t reach for John’s bulge again until asked, but he wanted to desperately, to stroke and grind against the organ and smell its release. That might be even more amazing than having it get him off—Karkat wanted to touch it and watch John lose control. Smell his genetic material mixing with sweat and that amazing aroma that was always clinging to John’s skin and telling Karkat that he’d found paradise. He wanted to have John rubbing his horns all sweet while he took his pleasure from Karkat’s fingers and—  
  
“Oh god,” Karkat whimpered, jolting with realization, “I’m going to come.” He was burning up. John’s stupid shit really had turned him on that much. How was this even a thing?  
  
“Good,” John whispered into him, and released one of Karkat’s horns to tug his head towards John’s chest. Karkat went willingly, breathing too fast with surprise and eagerness. He couldn’t believe this. Scratch that, he’d believe in anything that finally got him off.  
  
“With me,” he whimpered, touching John’s cheek. “Fill the bucket with me?”  
  
“No duh,” John told him fondly, and Karkat felt himself unwinding before John even moved. His mouth closed over Karkat’s horn—so hot, so shockingly humid—and then sucked down. Karkat screamed soundlessly, shudders shooting down his spine again and again, sensation throbbing into his nook and bulge hard enough to make the retention reflexes snap. Too much genetic material and too many mating impulses were inside of them by now to stop. Karkat felt the seals inside of him sliding aside and the flood begin, way too slowly, with him panting desperately all the while, John’s mouth relentless on his horn and searing into his nerves.  
  
Fluid rang out loudly in the bucket as Karkat started to come, a thin stream from both his nook and his bulge, none of the seals fully removed without friction to stimulate them. Karkat hyperventilated with amazement and relief at once as the orgasm began and then stalled, picked up again. Pulsed so slow, as the seals struggled to release unstimulated. God, it was agony.  
  
“Love the way you come,” John informed him for possibly the millionth time, releasing Karkat’s throbbing horn to lick the other between his massaging fingers. “You manage it for so long and make the best sounds.” Karkat’s bulge squelched louder, like it could hear, and John chuckled, stroking fingers along Karkat’s throat, where he was moaning giddily. “I meant the ones here, actually. I love the way you sound when you’re feeling good.”  
  
And it was, of course, so unbearably good. Karkat couldn’t think. His thinkpan had been completely tipped over by this, and sizzled with pleasure.  
  
John pulled away briefly, unzipping his own pants. The sight of his bulge made Karkat writhe hungrily, tensing like he’d been physically touched. John leaned over the bucket with Karkat at last and pumped his bulge twice before he shuddered and sent a burst of white fluid in to join Karkat’s ongoing release.  
  
It wasn’t much—never was—but the sight was more than enough to put Karkat out of his misery. He gasped, the seal drawing fully back in his bulge to release his genetic material. John sucked his other horn into his mouth and nursed as Karkat poured—and while only that ridiculously thin stream left his nook. The discrepancy made him dizzy. His vision was going white and shimmery, like he would shut down from it. Ecstasy stretched, lasting forever.  
  
Karkat stroked beneath John’s shirt as he came back down, calming the shaking muscles he found there, reminding them both to breathe. John laughed, voice throaty and low with pleasure, and he tugged himself upright with an arm around Karkat’s neck. He murmured, stupid and sweet. “You okay?” Karkat’s bulge had exhausted itself, slurped back into its sheath—and the seal was snapped tight in his nook, retaining a fat store of material. Karkat was going to regret this a great deal within the hour; his bulge was empty and it would be _such a bitch_ to come with just his nook. Ugh.  
  
Karkat had a retort that was going to involve creative uses for human biology—before John tweaked his horns and it was lost in a haze of calm. He just nodded— _yeah, I’m fine. What the hell else would I be, when I’m stuck with you?_ He nuzzled into John’s chest, purring as he finally got the closeness he wanted so badly. John’s hands moved back down, circling lower to, oh. Thank god. Set off your fireworks now; John had finally taken notice of Karkat’s nook.  
  
Karkat sighed, clinging happily as the human teased him, able to ascertain with wandering hands that John’s bulge was getting back into the swing of things. Yes, yes, Karkat liked this plan. A lot. As soon as his fingers popped free, John was lining them up and Karkat was lifting his hips. John nudged in and Karkat instantly sucked him deep and squeezed down welcomingly.  
  
John wasn’t enough of an ass to tease about it—he thrust roughly, which the Karkat usually had no patience for (he was a sucker for romance, all _shut up and me enjoy it_ ), but right now it felt spectacular. Karkat was going to come again, somehow, evident by how hot his body was burning. His genetic chambers were at capacity, and John was gasping sounds that made Karkat want to curl into him and drift like it was music. Those sounds told Karkat they would be pailing for a long while.  
  
He needed to feel that. This came down to biology; Karkat’s body was confused that they’d delayed normal stimulation and probably needed reassurance more than it needed sex. _Show me that I’m doing this right. Accept what I’m offering._  
  
About 99% of the time, John was an incorrigible idiot, but when it really mattered—when it was bone-deep and scary because Karkat loved this idiot too much—John never failed to get it exactly right.  
  
“I can do this all night, Karkat,” John panted into his mouth as they kissed, voice syrupy with his own pleasure. “Would you like me too? I want to pail you until we’re both all sore and shaky.” He grinned, smoothing the sweaty hair from Karkat’s face as the troll lunged for his mouth again.  
  
His nook felt amazing. It _did_ , Christ, he always forgot how talented John was at this. His bulge, though it’d definitely exhausted its genetic stores, was slithering out and tangling with John’s fingers as he thrust, throbbing with encouraging desire. Karkat was so high on pleasure that his nook’s genetic chamber swelled wider with every second. He was making more, like he wasn’t all the way full—but he was. He was so ready to let go. It was just that his seal wasn’t budging. And the more John fucked him, the fuller his nook got and the more unbearable his need became. Fuck, he _had_ to come this time. All the way. Hard. He was losing his mind.  
  
In a fit of inspiration, Karkat let his weight fall into John’s hands. He reached up, breathing heavier in an anticipation—that alone told him he was exactly right, the way his body was suddenly jolting with a foreign sort of hunger—and began to rub his horns. Immediately, Karkat felt the seal twitching inside. But he needed more.  
  
It felt too good to take his hands away though—seal shivering, sending little streams of liquid to escape around John’s human bulge as it pounded inside. His horns felt raw, but they had him relaxing and submitting all over again. He made John cry out against him, pushing hard into the embracing flesh as Karkat spread his legs and sucked inside. Begged for more, aloud and silently, until his body was one tender, adoring ache.  
  
John understood, because he was the best matesprit/kismesis/boyfriend ever. He held Karkat to him, tongue swiping the horns as Karkat squeezed them, then batting his fingers away to suck carefully while he thrust hard and rough. Karkat’s nook spasmed immediately—and Karkat resisted release.  
  
Yeah, yeah, dumb thing to do. Whatever. He wanted to draw it out, okay? It was Valentine’s Day. He was (apparently) allowed to be kinky.  
  
Genetic material was pouring into his chambers, making them hurt, but. It felt too amazing, shivering on the cusp of it, fully relaxed and being loved with such eagerness. His fingers crept between his legs while John sucked both his horns, alternating. Karkat’s bulge crawled all over his hand and John’s, their fingers linking together in the squirming thatch of him. This time John didn’t interfere.  
  
“Karkat,” John whispered, sounding amused and desperate at once as Karkat’s nook twitched and clung to him, “Let go.”  
  
He bit down as Karkat surrendered to everything spinning around him. Teeth harsh in the sensitive, fleshy base of his horns—and Karkat’s nook flooded, releasing so fast and hard that the troll tried to double over, held up only by the teeth in his sensitive horn and the pounding bulge inside him as he poured into the bucket.  
  
The bucket overflowed. Fuck.  
  
Karkat’s knees soaked as he continued to release, throbbing with volcanic pleasure. John got soaked too, made him feel too much heat from the motion of his bulge. Karkat keened softly to indicate his distress, but yeah, neither of them were really buying that. Didn’t care about the bucket, only about having John’s touch. John finished inside him while Karkat helplessly ruined the carpet and then just held him, inside and out, kissing him over and over again as Karkat finished in bursts, insides clinging to his human’s softened bulge. He was swooning, swallowing cries of deep pity and hate, and literally _could not stop_ a rhythmic gush from inside him, not for a long time, and until there was a great mess of pheromone-perfumed material puddled all around them.  
  
When he could stop, his nook ached, pleasantly sore and relaxed from its workout, while his bulge returned smugly to its sheath. Between the horns and the orgasm of a century, it took Karkat a while to be up to speaking. When he was, all he managed to do was grumble, “Fuck the carpet.” John laughed, breathless, eyes sparkling, and squeezed Karkat until he purred reluctantly. They kissed, like it was their first time.

\----

“So what did you get me for Valentine’s Day?” John asked, after the pair of them had hauled their sorry asses to bed (they’d done their best for the carpet. Tomorrow Karkat was bathing it with industrial strength bleach so that when they inevitably caved and called the carpet replacement guy, Karkat wouldn’t be getting any weird fucking looks.  
  
Or at least, not any weird looks he couldn’t plausibly deny.)  
  
Karkat tipped his head back far enough to glare at the illustrious Big Spoon. “A big fat shiny new nothing,” he informed John with an arched eyebrow. “Be thankful you’re alive. For now. My bulge may never be the same and it’s all your fault.”  
  
“I’m a genius,” John informed him solemnly. Karkat arched an eyebrow.  
  
“Among Consorts? Yes, probably. Otherwise, not so fucking much.”  
  
John responded by booping Karkat on the nose. “Genius,” he repeated, eyes travelling over Karkat’s face. Karkat had no idea what John saw in his hideous visage, but it made him grin. Karkat deemed this sufficient provocation to kick his foot back until it connected with something that flinched. “Ow,” John declared. “Wait, why is my present abuse? You just said it was nothing!”  
  
“Valentine’s Day is a stupid holiday,” Karkat grumbled, and bulldozed his head under a pillow. His horns felt funny and still kind of tingly. It kept tricking him into thinking he should be nice to John. To make up for this, Karkat was being as belligerent as possible. He thought about kicking John some more—seriously, the human could have at least warned him this morning that they’d be going on a sexual spree into the untamed lands of human creativity—and then the humans started rubbing small, comforting circles into his back. Karkat tried not to like it.  
  
“Ugh, why are you so,” he growled from beneath the pillow. “So. Urgh.”  
  
John, as far as Karkat could tell, had just smacked a kiss onto the pillow over Karkat’s head. “Cause I love you?”  
  
“Shut up,” Karkat snarled. “I still didn’t get you a present.”  
  
“Okay,” John giggled. He continued rubbing those circles into Karkat’s back. The bastard.  
  
And Karkat caved after about seven minutes of the snuggle treatment. “Look under the bed and never mention it again,” he groaned, and tried to suffocate himself in the mattress. John, like the tremendous wriggler he was, squealed in excitement and nearly knocked Karkat off the bed flailing around. Karkat growled half-heartedly.  
  
“Karkat? I can’t find i—“  
  
“FEEL AROUND.” The fuck he was helping John find his Valentine’s Day present. Seriously, where was that written in Karkat’s job description? Here’s a hint: it wasn’t. Also see: fuck you, Egbert and: I’m not your goddamned lusus.  
  
He heard a crinkle of paper that told him John had found it and he could now stop obsessing over the human’s idiocy. Karkat retreated from the pillow. Only slightly—just enough to get a little sliver of vision back. John was peeling back the silver paper Karkat had used for wrapping (which he’d saved from Gristmas, because he was smart and preferred to spend his savings on new movies rather than human consumerism. Once again, shut up). He did it carefully, like he was afraid of crinkling Karkat’s hideously bad wrapping job.  
  
Probably because this would allow him to mock Karkat’s hideously bad wrapping job later. Irritated, Karkat jammed his head back under the pillow.  
  
After a moment, he heard John give a soft huff of breath—not quite a gasp—and then he was using that soft voice he reserved for when Karkat smiled at him too much. Karkat’s bloodpusher went squishy. It was clearly defective. Karkat swallowed a purr. “Oh wow. Karkat, it’s… I don’t know what to say.” He laughed. “And I just got you bucket chocolate! _Wow._ ”  
  
“Nrgh,” Karkat said, because he was enjoying being mad and John was ruining it. “Put it on.”  
  
“Oh—can I?” John laughed, and answered his own question. “I guess I can. You gave it to me, huh…”  
  
“Are you putting it on?”  
  
“Yes, gimme a—aha! There we go.” Karkat could hear the huge smile in his human’s voice. He smiled back, even under his pillow. Happy John was his favorite. Don’t tell John that, though; he’d be insufferable. “You wanna see?”  
  
“No,” Karkat lied. He couldn’t seem to wipe the smile off his face.  
  
So naturally John grabbed the pillow and tried to steal it—which forced Karkat to defend his territory and they wrestled until both of them were panting and disgustingly sweaty all over again. The pillow was long gone. Karkat thought it might have been hurled somewhere in the direction of the closet. He was flopped on John’s chest, unable to stop himself from looking at the pendant hanging around John’s neck.  
  
John totally caught him at it too. He giggled, and hugged Karkat. “Kind of girly, thanks.” Smooched the top of his head, then both cheeks—then, before Karkat could get too annoyed, finally kissed his lips. Karkat kissed back, a little overeager and a little grumbly because of it.  
  
“It looks good on you,” he observed. Purely objectively.  
  
It did look good on John—Karkat didn’t know how the human craftsmen had fashioned silver and green stones into a tiny, perfect tempest, but it was beautiful and rested in the hollow of John’s collarbone like… It just looked like a distant place that you could fly away into, and it also looked a bit like Karkat’s thinkpan felt whenever his human was around, okay? Stupid, beautiful chaos. Urgh, all this emotional turbulence was making his stomach hurt.  
  
Karkat observed, still objectively, that the pendant looked “way better than it did in the store window. I was setting the natural order right.”  
  
“Hmm,” John was giving him a look. “And how much did it cost to set the natural order right?”  
  
“Like, ten bucks,” Karkat lied automatically. Ten bucks, give or take. A year’s worth of movie titles savings? Or something like that. Whatever. No one needed to know. John traced the wrinkle between Karkat’s eyebrow as he glowered. His touch was enough to make Karkat sigh and give up on making faces. He sank sleepily into the pillow next to John, butting their noses together—John giggled. Traced the lines in Karkat’s skin some more.  
  
Said, “I should have gotten you something better.”  
  
Karkat eyed him. He refused to say something sappy like ‘you did’ or ‘how exactly did you plan to top making me feel like the most loved fucking thing on your stupid new planet?’  
  
So he said, “I love you so much it scares me, you dumbass.”  
  
Fuuuck.  
  
Now and forever, Karkat definitely sucked. Possibly not as much as John, who was struggling to keep a straight face, but he still definitely was a sucky existence.  
  
John asked, “Do you love me enough to eat the bucket chocolate?”  
  
“Never,” Karkat bared his teeth. Yeah.  
  
He’d break down in about a week and John would come home to find questionable stains on the counter and Karkat not hungry for dinner. But first; denial.  
  
“Really now,” John said, with a twinkle in his eye that said he’d just taken up a personal challenge. His cheeks were flushed with happiness instead of cold, the storm glittered against his sweaty skin, and he was Karkat’s.  
  
Karkat sighed and told himself that at the very least, he wouldn’t crack until tomorrow.


End file.
